Of Revenge and Fufillment
by Leona-Aurelia
Summary: Hawke did not take up the Bait and Switch quest, but another person needed the possible compensations more than most. Out of conflict, disagreements and revenge blossoms a relationship that neither party expected. Slight AU. Fenris x OC.


**Disclaimer**: Ryana and her family members are my OC's. As are her mabari, (who I will introduce you to in the next chapter.) If you do not like pairings of canon character x OC, then you won't like any of my stories so please press the 'back' button on your browser now. This story will also be slightly AU, due to the presence of a new character that has the potential to alter many events in the storyline progression. Again, if this is not to your liking, then please press the 'back' button now.

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Ryana missed the green, open spaces of Ferelden. Kirkwall was entirely too brown and made her feel claustrophobic at every turn. At least when she was back at the farm she could take a deep breath and smell fresh air, not human waste. Her distaste for her new 'home' only grew as her family had to constantly hide her twin sister, Elicia, from the family hadn't had much of a choice as to where they went to escape the Blight, as they had little money, so they bought passage to wherever they could afford. Unfortunately for Elicia, the only available destination was Kirkwall. The only thing protecting Elicia from the Templars was her family and her own self-restraint. Many nights, she whispered to Ryana of her wish that their father had led them to Denerim or at least kept them somewhere in Ferelden. Ferelden's Circle was far more tolerant of mages than the circle in Kirkwall. Although Ryana empathized with her sister's plight, she always reminded her that their father had made the safest decision for everyone. The Blight was something far more frightening than the Templars, even though Elicia didn't necessarily agree. The family hadn't known that the battle at Ostagar had claimed almost all of the Wardens, but once that news came to their ears even Elicia was glad that they had sought shelter across the sea. With the Wardens crippled, who knows how long it would take for the archdemon to be slain?

Ryana'sfamily was larger than some that had made the journey from Ferelden to Kirkwall, and they were all still grieving over the one loss they suffered. The children's mother hadn't been the healthiest of persons to begin with, but the intensely cramped journey by ship caused her to become infected with a sickness that even Elicia's frantic life-giving magic couldn't cure. Soon after they landed in Kirkwall, they gathered up enough tinder to give the recently deceased family member a proper funeral. It took months for them to enter the city, and during that time they had plenty of time to assess each other for the difficult times ahead.

Ryana and her twin sister were not especially attractive, but were still fair young ladies despite their hard upbringing. Their father couldn't have looked more the part of a farmer if he tried. Their older brothers were strong young men who were protective of their younger sisters, though the middle one was more likely to express his affection through teasing. Every member held clear family resemblances: grey eyes and only slightly varying shades of brown hair. The girls were of the age that they could take care of themselves, under normal circumstances, but seventeen winters wasn't even close to enough time to have prepared them to face Kirkwall on their own. Their elder brothers — Olmen and Kerian — were separated from the girls in age by four and two years respectively. The teenagers and their elder brother mostly cared for themselves, but their father, Raiden, still did his best to keep bread on the table for them.

Raiden and Olmen managed to find work with a local mine owner, Hubert, but Kerian wasn't hired along with them and found no luck with other farms or businesses. He spent his days guarding the cave that the family had managed to claim before other refugees in the hills surrounding Kirkwall. Ryana and Elicia took whatever odd jobs that were offered to them through local shopkeepers that needed cheap delivery of goods or simple, cheap labor. That wasn't to say that most shopkeepers didn't make them beg beforehand, as being Ferelden in Kirkwall was a clear stamp of lower-class and discrimination against the refugees was rampant. Lirene, the shopkeeper and owner of Lirene's Ferelden Imports, was one of less than a handful of shop owners that would offer the two girls work willingly.

On a good day, the girls brought in ten coppers from their odd jobs. Most days, however, the girls constantly found themselves a step behind the other desperate refugees and there was nothing they could do but dig through the scraps of the markets to try and find something useful or profitable. Hubert paid their father and elder brother a total of fourteen coppers for each week of work, which was worse than what the sisters could earn, but at least it was essentially stable.

The family managed to catch a break after about nine months of living outside the city. Darktown wasn't much better than their previous 'home', but at least it was in the city itself. It gave them a true roof over their heads, even if it did leak when it rained. There were actual walls instead of the slimy stone that encased the cave, even if they, too, had holes in them. The smell of wet moss and mold was traded in for the stench of too many people with too few places to properly relieve themselves.

Life continued at its usual, hectic and occasionally straining pace for about four months and the family stayed out of the gazes of the Guard and of the had been a couple attempts to rob their home — mostly by Undercity residents that weren't stealthy enough to steal coin purses from the market goers — but Kerian and his dagger were more than a match for the unsuspecting intruders. He never killed anyone, but he certainly made each one of them think twice before trying anything like that again.

Then, one day, the family's hectic pace was brought to a screeching halt. And, more specifically, Elicia's life was placed on hold.

The middle brother had no idea that the latest intruder he had caught and thrown out was actually a low-ranking member of the Coterie and now held a grudge for being humiliated by a boy half his age. The man had informed his superiors that the family had been raiding Coterie shipments, and, once that false seed was planted, there was nothing the family could have done to keep out of the Coterie's way.

Kerian had been home by himself until the early evening, when the girls returned home. After a quick conversation, Kerian decided to put his feet up and catch some shut-eye now that his sisters could take over watch and Elicia were used to this kind of switch off from their brother, and sat together on the floor while they sorted through the things they had found in their latest trip through the market scraps.

"You think this is worth anything?" Ryana asked, holding up a scratched but still shiny bauble.

"It's cracked pretty bad in the corner," Elicia replied, leaning over to tap on the small object in her sister's hand. "Merchants won't buy something they can't repair."

"What?" Ryana turned the bauble over in her fingers to look at what her twin was talking about. "Oh... I honestly thought I had something..."

"Don't worry about it, Ry," Elicia said, her face lighting up with her characteristically reassuring smile. "We'll find something tomorrow if this bag doesn't have anything."

Ryana smiled back, but hers was little more than a candle in comparison to her sister's carefree grin.

The twins barely got back into their sorting when the began to hear loud banging on the door. That was more than enough to rouse Kerian from his slumber with a startled snort and he began staring at the door just like his sisters. Moments later, yelling started, but was muffled by the walls, so none of them could make out what was being said. There were several different voices amongst the rabble, yet another thing that told them this was not anything normal. No thief or robber announced themselves so loudly, and their father or elder brother knocked.

Just as the girls were standing up and Ryana grabbed a nearby knife to defend her family with, the door slammed open and a handful of armed men burst into the home. Kerian was the first to rush them, but only knocked one of the men out before he was bashed over the head. Two of the men began rifling through any drawers and looking in every corner as if they expected to find something. As the other three headed right for the girls, what appeared to be the leader of the rabble seemed particularly excited.

"Tie 'em up, boys," he said to his fellows, glancing at them each in turn with a devilish smirk on his face. "Girls've been pretty popular with the Tevinters lately... we'll get a good price for 'em."

The girls were shaking, but both were ready to defend themselves. Ryana stood firm, dagger raised defensively before her, the tip pointed directly at the men. Elicia may have appeared to be unarmed, but she was gathering up what mana she could before the men could touch her or her sister.

The moment one of the men threw the rope around Ryana, all three were slammed into the opposite wall of the building and all the air was pressed out of their lungs. Ryana wasn't affected, which startled her even more than the initial release of magic. She had seen her sister practice magic before on their farm — healing farming injuries and pulling up water from the well without the use of a bucket — but nothing of this magnitude. Once she regained some of her wits, Ryana made sure to step out of the rope and toss it aside so that neither she nor her sister would trip over it in the closer combat to come.

"Bloody hell!" one of the men that had been turning the home upside down cried. He stopped what he was doing for only a moment before rushing Elicia, the final man backing him up from a different direction. "She's an apostate!"

Ryana took out the secondary attacker as she regained her senses, rushing at him and slamming him against a wall with her own body weight before stabbing her knife into his chest. She wasn't used to fighting, at least not with weapons, but her and her family's lives depended on it.

The screamer did not even get within two steps of Elicia before he was impaled on a spiritual stake. No blood came to the wound, but the man's body went limp and his eyes became lifeless as he noiselessly slipped to the ground. Elicia's body was trembling, but she held fast even as the men she had previously knocked out began regaining consciousness.

When the men recovered some of their wits, they saw their dead compatriot on the floor, the second man clutching the part of his chest that Ryana had just yanked her knife out and the third still only semi-conscious on the floor by Kerian's limp form. Elicia's hands crackled with energy. All the fight drained out of them with the color in their faces at the sight. They scrambled to the other Coterie members and each one dragged another fallen fellow out the door with them.

Once every single intruder had either scrambled or been dragged from their doorstep and into the enclosing night, the twins took down their guard and ran to their brother's aid. Ryana pulled Kerian up so that she could place his head in her lap as Elicia began using her gift to heal whatever injury was keeping their brother from waking. That kind of magic Ryana had seen many times before and it made her feel as if everything was going to be alright. He was still breathing well, which greatly relieved both girls of worry. Elicia didn't have to take too long to attend to his concussion but even when she was done Kerian continued to sleep.

Once they had tended to Kerian, Ryana insisted that Elicia find some water so they could attempt to clean themselves and their home of the incident. When Elicia did manage to obtain some muddy water, Ryana was quick to begin attempting to scrub the already caking blood off of her hands, lower arms and face. Elicia was working on the floors, trying to wash them of the blood that was left over from the incident as well as to dry the floors enough that sleeping bags wouldn't be dampened through the night. Neither of the twins spoke about the incident to each other as they were struggling with the adrenaline rise and fall as well as attempting to block out the fact that they had just killed people. Yes, they were Coterie. Yes, they had invaded their home. The problem was that neither of those facts helped the girls feel any better about murder even if it saved their own lives.

When Raiden and Olmen returned from their day in the mine about an hour later, they were shocked at the disarray that was still present. Kerian was beginning to wake, which relieved the twins a great deal. They hugged their father and elder brother tightly, as if they were the only things that would keep them from being washed away in an unseen tide. It took them quite a while to really recount what had happened and with every detail their elder brother and father became less and less responsive. Kerian, as he finally regained his full senses, was far more embarrassed that he hadn't been the one to defend the home than he was frightened by being targeted by the Coterie. The fact was, they had nowhere else to run to, even with the Coterie unhappy with them. They were lucky enough to find a place that was empty and not directly in the sewers in Darktown and by now their previous 'home' in the hill caves had been claimed by another family or by cutthroats that wouldn't even think of giving up their hiding place.

In order to keep his mind and hands occupied, their father began fixing the door. The amount of repair that he could do before the sun set was only enough to keep prying eyes away, but it wouldn't stand up to a solid kick if they Coterie came back. Olmen began helping Elicia with the cleaning and drying of the floors. The family was the most quiet they had been in months that evening, only speaking when absolutely necessary and even then only saying a few words.

That night, Elicia had a much more fitful sleep than usual and Ryana was having a hard time staying asleep next to her twin. After the third time she was woken by Elicia's movement, Ryana was not the only one; Elicia herself had finally woken from whatever fitful dream she was having. The expression she wore was one that Ryana had never seen in her entire life. Before Ryana could ask what had been keeping Elicia up all night, she extended her hand to Ryana. In the mage's palm was a white rune with deep blue lettering on it.

"Take it," Elicia whispered, clearly not wanting anyone else to wake up. When Ryana didn't immediately do so, she grasped Ryana's nearest hand and pushed the stone into her palm. "It will keep you, and our family, safe."

Ryana's brow furrowed, worried about what she was hearing from her sister. "What are you talking about?"

Elicia smiled, though it was a shadow of its former self. "Those men will tell the Templars, I just know it. I wanted to make sure I left you all with something before they came for me."

Ryana glanced down at the rune in her palm before gripping it tightly. "I won't let them take you. We'll hide out tomorrow, wait until they stop looking for you here and then come back."

She shook her head. "No, Ry. They don't give up. You've heard the same stories I have."

"That doesn't mean they have to happen to you!" Ryana hissed, reaching out and grasping her sister's hand with her free one. "Don't talk like that. We're all going to stay together." With that, she pushed the rune back into her sister's hand and laid back down. "I'm not taking it," she said, clearly not wanting to allow any kind of argument.

Light had only just started to sift through the holes in their hovel when the door was once again pushed aside. This time, just as Elicia had feared, it was a handful of fully-armed Templars. Elicia was already awake, sitting on one of the few chairs they had as if she had been waiting all night for them. The family roused the moment that the men came tromping through the door. The other three members of the family immediately went to Elicia's side.

"We've received a report that you have been harboring a dangerous apostate," one of the Templars informed them, taking one large step towards the family. "Turn her over or all of you will face imprisonment on order of Knight Commander Meredith and the Viscount."

Elicia stood slowly, holding her hands up in front of her chest as if waiting for shackles to clasp around her wrists. "I am the mage of this family. I had to abandon my staff before coming here, so there is only me to take. My family has done nothing to deserve imprisonment."

The whole group of Templars looked amongst themselves for a moment, as if they were not at all expecting her to come quietly.

"Very well," said the leader, stopped only a step away from Elicia.

As he reached up to grasp her closest wrist, Ryana slapped the man's armored hand away and slipping in front of her with her arms spread wide. "All she's ever done is help our family!" she argued. "Healed our wounds, helped us farm before we came here, and the people you heard about us from were trying to rob us blind. Probably kill us, too! She doesn't deserve —"

Elicia placed a hand on Ryana's shoulder, gripping it lightly. "Ry..." she murmured. "Either you let me go, or you all'll be locked away for no good reason."

The leader of the group was staring Ryana down, and she was staring him down in return.

After a few tense moments, Raiden spoke up. "Ryana. Let your sister go."

Ryana glanced back at their father, glaring at him. "You're going to just abandon her to the Templars?!" she snapped, still refusing to move.

She was suddenly pulled off her feet from her other side, Olmen the one with a tight grip on her wrist. "We have no choice," he murmured, his other hand gripping her waist so that she couldn't return to her previous spot beside Elicia.

"That you don't," the Templar said, quickly reaching out and grasping Elicia's offered wrist. "You should be grateful that she decided to surrender willingly."

As he was on his way out with Elicia in tow, Ryana was still yelling after him and wrestling to get out of her brother's grasp. "**Difficult**?! You stomp in and tear people's families apart! You have no idea what difficult is!" She wanted to find out if the man had a family, a wife, a child or two — and if he did, she wanted to take them from him because he had taken her sister. At the same time, she knew that he was just a pawn for the ignorant Chantry. She had resented them, even more so whenever her father and older brother would attend services there. It was as if they refused to acknowledge what the Chantry condoned on a daily basis. If anything was dangerous, it was the power that the Chanty wielded through the iron-clad hands of the Templars.

Ryana continued to wrestle with her brother even after she could no longer see her twin or any of the Templars through the door of their home. The young mage had barely been able to turn her head long enough to give Ryana one last reassuring smile. She mouthed, "I love you," before one of the Templars roughly yanked her so she was fully facing front once more.

Elicia always felt like the only person Ryana could tell everything to. They always played together as children because their brothers played too rough. They both liked similar things, such as animals and the beautiful color of the sky after a heavy rain. Ryana didn't even leave to go scavenge that day, refusing to part from Elicia's blanket and hardly moved from her place on the floor.

She altered her grip slightly, holding the linen tighter to her body, and realized that there was something inside the folds. Gingerly, she unwrapped the blanket and something hard clattered onto the old plank flooring beneath her. As she placed the blanket aside to look at what was on the floor, a piece of paper fluttered out of the folds as well. The paper was slightly crumpled, probably because of how much she'd been gripping the blanket, but the writing was still readable.

_Ry,_

_I know you said you didn't want this, but __**I**_ _want you to have it. I told you about the Fade before, right? I was there last night, as I was every night, but last night I looked for one of the spirits there. The good ones, not the scary ones I warned you about. The rune, it was just a pretty white rock when I found it but now it has a spirit of compassion inside it. That's what the symbol on it means. Compassion. It'll protect you from anything magical, so use it to keep everybody safe, okay? I'll miss you and think of you every day from the Circle._

Ryana knew who had written it even before she read the name that was signed at the bottom: _Elicia_. She placed the note down on her lap, leaning over to grab the rune and grip it tightly in her hand. She had something that was a reminder of her sister, but it did little to ease the pain of her sister's absence.

The young Ferelden had nothing to fear from Templars. They were after mages, but if she had the chance, she'd help others run from them. No family deserved to have a loved one locked away from them.


End file.
